Holy week would be a crowded and noisy salute to the last of summer’s heat, but we were able to endure until Easter, the return of rain and peace at last.
(FALKLAND ISLANDS, Argentina) - Islas Malvinas Day came and went. A thief in the night, it hid itself at the beginning of la semana santa (holy week) and managed to stay unnoticed in the shadows of the grander holidays that would follow. There were no conspicuous displays of Argentine flags, parades, fireworks or other conventional displays of patriotic fervor.
In el Bolson, the only inkling we had that there was a holiday afoot was that the banks were closed; but in a town with only two banks that stay open only three hours per day, most closures go by unnoticed. The 24-hour teller machines did a nonetheless brisk business.
The Diebold Corporation does not cry for Argentina’s loss at the hands of Margaret Thatcher’s Navy. The used bookseller with her rickety card-tables of pulp novels that she sells in front of the library was the sole observant, sporting a banner announcing the sale of Malvinas memorial calendars.
Indignant patriots blamed the government for the fizzling of their holiday. It seems that the commemoration had been moved from another date and placed on April 2nd to coincide with the date that Argentina’s “liberation” of the Malvinas began in 1982.
Well-meaning politicians had hoped that having the Malvinas holiday serve as a kick-off to this year’s Easter celebration would help make it a more upbeat and brighter holiday. After all, Holy Week is Argentina’s equivalent of Labor Day in the US, a grand finale to summer that includes a full week of family vacation and endless barbecue. With half the country in a party mood, on the road headed for their favorite vacation spot, there could be no doubt that the week’s traditional good vibes would spill out onto the Malvinas commemoration. They couldn’t have been more wrong. The specter of Leoplodo Galuteri, the evil military dictator who launched the April 2nd attack to rescue his faltering grip on power, cast a pall over the day.
The Argentine Flag, the Clock Tower fromEngland and the Eternal Flame for the FalklandIsland/Islas Malvinas War Memorial
Adding insult to injury, torrential downpours struck all the northern mountain resorts and swamped southern Patagonia as well. Islas Malvinas Day was not meant to be.
The current neo-socialist Peronist government of Nestor Kirchner has been trying to whip up its own variety of nationalist frenzy over the Malvinas with mixed success. While nearly all Argentines of all political persuasions have a deep soft spot for the windswept Atlantic rocks that the British call the Falklands, few are moved to actually do anything about the “lost province.” The government cancelled some unused oil leases and the people declined to remove the remains of fallen relatives in an island cemetery.
It’s as if Argentina declared its dedication to the Malvinas in a fit of inaction. All the speechmaking and news broadcasting around these non-events has, however, gained the attention of the international press. While the rest of the world witnesses the awakening of belligerent nationalism, Argentines go on about their business safe in the knowledge that they have about as much chance of reclaiming the islands as Mexico has of reclaiming California. Besides, the week brought some more local and passionate political issues to the fore.
The Neuquen teacher’s strike turned bloody. Neuquen is a vast inland province that straddles the border between the fertile southern Pampa and the northernmost reaches of the great Patagonian desert. Halfway on its course from the Andes to the Atlantic, the Rio Negro passes through the urban heartland of Neuquen Province, the twin cities of Neuquen and Cipoletti.
Islas Malvinas Day in ArgentinaSalem-News.com